I tell my students that writing is an art, not a science, that there is no law governing how to write a masterpiece. Whatever works for each as an individual writer should be adhered to. Just how each walks with their chosen stride, there is no need to modify our gait to cohabitate the footprints of others. When Horace says in his “Ars Poetica” to wait nine years before trying to publish a written poem that you like, it may be wise to submit it sooner than he suggests.
I think that this advice from our Roman friend, though hyperbolic, has more than a touch of merit to it. Many poets have strong egos and having strong egos thus take a strong liking to the product of their recent labor. If one can hold off submitting until this product has been displaced by others of yet more recent labor, you may be able to look at it with new eyes, almost as an outsider, evaluating it more objectively. “The mind is so near itself – it cannot see, distinctly,” Dickinson noted, agonizing over the task of evaluating her own work. We cannot confuse ourselves with our own writing nearly as easily as we can confuse another. Giving ourselves time to clear our heads after the initial composition is an indispensable tool of the writer looking to evaluate their writing, second only to getting responses from trusted critics, hopefully several.
Seeking to gain a clearer perspective on each poem of mine, seeking to leverage the power of time in my art, I have adopted the following writing process for about a decade now, and it has served me well:
1. Write a poem
2. Set it aside until the next calendar year
3. Read it anew and revise it
4. Show it to my chosen critics
5. Revise it again
6. Set it aside until the next calendar year
7. Revise it again
8. Submit it to various journals
This process helps me write better poetry than I normally would. It is a pretty slow process, but I do find that it connects me to not just my current work, but my body of work. This is my stride, my gait. You writers of poetry, what does your writing process look like? Do you work more slowly? More quickly?
By M. Anthony
Over/Poetry 
I love this post
It is the most enticing thing
To make me dream of writing something
Finally
Since it seems
Life has taken me away
From writing a day
In every year or two
Or decade or two
And so dear Thew
You have inspired me to
Quickly write not crock-pot long
Nor year set aside
But microwave baked
Words to describe
The joy I feel
When I write!
Dad 🙂
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Haha, microwaved verse
is fine to rehearse
for it would be worse
for poetry’s curse
to be found in a hearse.
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